SERVICE: Support for the grieving

Death is inevitable, but most often we learn of it from a detached distance.

We feel sorry and sad for those affected, send a card or flowers, and express hopes that they will ‘get over it’ soon.

We are sincere in our compassion, but can’t fully know the nature of grief felt by those experiencing the loss of their loved one. Grief is unique and individual, bereavement involving all sorts of tangled emotions.

We don’t ‘get over’ the death of a loved one quickly like we recover from physical injury or illness. The best we can do is work our way through a difficult journey, sometime glimpsing a hopeful distant horizon, sometimes feeling that we are slipping back into a dark pit.

Support from friends and family helps and eventually our emptiness will begin to be filled with precious memories of those we loved and shared our lives with.

We may come to believe that we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to rebuild our lives on the foundations of love they left us.

Then we can start to celebrate that our loved ones lived, that they played a very special part in our lives, and we can resolve that, in moving forward, the memories we hold dear will help shape our new beginnings.

To help in this difficult process, the clergy and bereavement team of St Nicholas Church in Cramlington Village would very much like to extend a warm welcome to everyone, of any denomination or none, to a Memorial Service, at 6pm on Sunday, November 4.

This is a service of light and hope, which will provide a safe opportunity to light a candle, hear messages of hope and absorb some gentle music and poems whilst you remember your loved ones in your own way.